THE NIGHT is dark and your slumber is deep in the hush of my being. Wake, 0 Pain of Love, for I know not how to open the door, and I stand outside. The hours wait, the stars watch, the wind is still, the silence is heavy in my heart. Wake, Love, wake! brim my empty cup, and with a breath of song ruffle the night.
I.48. sukh sugar men aike WHEN AT last you are come to the ocean of happiness, do not go back thirsty. Wake, foolish man! for Death stalks you. Here is pure water before you; drink it at every breath. Do not follow the mirage on foot, but thirst for the nectar; Dhruva, Prahlad, and Shukadeva have drunk of it, and also Raidas has tasted it: The saints are drunk with love, their thirst is for love. Kabir says: 'Listen to me, brother! The nest of fear is broken. Not for a moment have you come face to face with the world: You are weaving your bondage of falsehood, your words are full of deception: With the load of desires which you hold on your head, how can you be light?' Kabir says: 'Keep within you truth, detachment, and love.'
DARKLY YOU sweep on. Eternal Fugitive, round whose bodiless rush stagnant space frets into eddying bubbles of light. Is your heart lost to the Lover calling you across his immeasurable loneliness? Is the aching urgency of your haste the sole reason why your tangled tresses break into stormy riot and pearls of fire roll along your path as from a broken necklace? Your fleeting steps kiss the dust of this world into sweetness, sweeping aside all waste; the storm centred with your dancing limbs shakes the sacred shower of death over life and freshens her growth. Should you in sudden weariness stop for a moment, the world would rumble into a heap, an encumbrance, barring its own progress, and even the least speck of dust would pierce the sky throughout its infinity with an unbearable pressure. My thoughts are quickened by this rhythm of unseen feet round which the anklets of light are shaken. They echo in the pulse of my heart, and through my blood surges the psalm of the ancient sea. I hear the thundering flood tumbling my life from world to world and form to form, scattering my being in an endless spray of gifts, in sorrowings and songs. The tide runs high, the wind blows, the boat dances like thine own desire, my heart! Leave the hoard on the shore and sail over the unfathomed dark towards limitless light.
